{"id":202874,"date":"2026-03-03T22:43:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T22:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/202874\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T22:43:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T22:43:07","slug":"from-san-diego-to-minneapolis-fatal-ice-encounters-show-impunity-of-federal-agents-advocates-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/202874\/","title":{"rendered":"From San Diego to Minneapolis, fatal ICE encounters show impunity of federal agents, advocates say"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article<\/a> was produced by Capital & Main. It is published here with permission.<\/p>\n

On a street\u00a0where a Border Patrol agent had just shot and killed a U.S. citizen in her car, one of the agency\u2019s leaders defended his actions to journalists who gathered at the scene.<\/p>\n

\u201cFearing for his life, he discharged his weapon to get the vehicle to stop,\u201d Rodney Scott\u00a0said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This was not Minneapolis 2026. It was in Chula Vista nearly 14 years ago, and Scott was the deputy chief of the San Diego Sector of Border Patrol. He is now the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, overseeing all of CBP and Border Patrol.<\/p>\n

The woman, Valeria Tachiqu\u00edn, had walked out of a Chula Vista apartment where plainclothes Border Patrol agents\u00a0showed up<\/a>\u00a0with a warrant for someone else. An agent followed her, and she ended up dead.<\/p>\n

Several witnesses told local media that Tachiqu\u00edn had her car in reverse, backing away from the agent when he killed her. One of those witnesses, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, said Border Patrol agents\u00a0locked him in their patrol car<\/a>\u00a0and tried to convince him of their narrative that the car hit the agent before he fired.<\/p>\n

The circumstances around the recent killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti<\/a> by immigration officials in Minnesota have strong similarities to two killings that occurred under Scott\u2019s watch in San Diego \u2014 that of Tachiqu\u00edn and an earlier killing of Anastasio Hern\u00e1ndez Rojas<\/a> \u2014 including the positions the victims were in when officials attacked them, federal officials\u2019 claims each had been aggressive that were later questioned or debunked, and Customs and Border Protection\u2019s involvement in handling the evidence.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>Rodney S. Scott has been named chief patrol agent for the border patrol\u2019s San Diego Sector. (Photo courtesy of Customs and Border Protection)<\/p>\n

To activists in the U.S.-Mexico border region who monitor federal use of force, the similarities are not surprising, but rather show symptoms of the impunity with which the agency operates. They say now that the agency\u2019s presence has expanded to other parts of the country, those places are experiencing the same issue.<\/p>\n

An unnamed Customs and Border Protection spokesperson said via email that both San Diego-area killings were more than a decade ago and that law enforcement had investigated at the time and found no wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

\u201cEfforts to malign CBP and ICE officers as lawbreakers are slanderous, irresponsible, and only reveal the media\u2019s eagerness to mislead the American people,\u201d the spokesperson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But to activists who monitor use of force in the border region, the investigations were part of the problem.<\/p>\n

In September 2012, witnesses said Tachiqu\u00edn was reversing her car away from a plainclothes Border Patrol agent in California when he\u00a0shot and killed her<\/a>. In January 2026, Renee Good\u00a0turned the wheels of her car<\/a>\u00a0to seemingly drive away from immigration officials on the streets of Minnesota. One\u00a0shot her dead<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In May 2010, Anastasio Hern\u00e1ndez Rojas lay on a concrete walkway at a San Diego port of entry while immigration officials piled on top of him and beat him until one shot him repeatedly with a Taser. He\u00a0died days later<\/a>. In January 2026, Alex Pretti was on his hands and knees on the snowy ground in Minneapolis surrounded by immigration officials who had piled on top of him and beaten him when one\u00a0shot him<\/a>\u00a0with a gun and killed him.<\/p>\n

In each case, officials with the federal government tried to blame the people who were dead, saying they had been aggressive and violent. Officials with the agency involved were part of the investigations, leading activists to question their independence and impartiality.<\/p>\n

Last year, an international human rights tribunal found that border officials\u00a0tortured and killed Hern\u00e1ndez Rojas<\/a>\u00a0and then tried to cover up what happened. The case documents pointed to actions by several agency leaders, including Scott<\/a>, who defended his behavior during his Senate confirmation hearing last April.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is just par for the course,\u201d said Andrea Guerrero, executive director of Alliance San Diego, which has monitored the agency\u2019s use of force over the years. \u201cThis is business as usual for the CBP that we know in the southern border region which has engaged in countless incidents of deadly force and gotten away with it until Anastasio.\u201d<\/p>\n

Preserving evidence<\/p>\n

At a hearing last month with the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Scott\u00a0told members of Congress<\/a>\u00a0that Customs and Border Protection was among the agencies investigating the killings and that the agency was responsible for preserving evidence.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To Guerrero, who helped investigate the alleged cover-up in the Hern\u00e1ndez Rojas case, that\u2019s a red flag.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt renders the investigation partial and puts the integrity of the investigation under doubt when the involved agency is charged with preserving evidence,\u201d Guerrero said. \u201cThat\u2019s a conflict of interest, pure and simple.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also something she has seen before.<\/p>\n

In preparing the Hern\u00e1ndez Rojas case for the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Guerrero\u2019s team learned that Border Patrol had a special unit that gathered evidence and worked to mitigate agency liability. Known as a critical incident team, critical incident investigative team or evidence collection team depending on the Border Patrol sector, the unit helped block the San Diego police from obtaining information, including Hern\u00e1ndez Rojas\u2019 medical records.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After Alliance San Diego and the Southern Border Communities Coalition raised concerns about the special units to Congress, the Biden administration\u00a0phased them out<\/a>\u00a0in 2022. But, Guerrero pointed out, the\u00a0memo<\/a>\u00a0announcing that change left room for Border Patrol to still collect evidence in \u201cborder enforcement seizures\u201d and \u201cto document management inquiries.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>Anastasio Hern\u00e1ndez Rojas\u2019 grave is dappled with sunlight and shadows in San Diego on Jan. 31, 2025. On May 28, 2010, Hern\u00e1ndez Rojas, a Mexican national, suffered a fatal heart attack after he was repeatedly shot with a Taser at the San Ysidro Port of Entry. The San Diego County medical examiner ruled his death a homicide. (Photo by Barbara Davidson\/For Capital & Main)<\/p>\n

Guerrero said she\u2019s worried that these management teams, as she called them, may still be affecting the outcomes of criminal investigations into agents.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe answer to independent and impartial investigations of federal law enforcement is we don\u2019t have one,\u201d Guerrero said.<\/p>\n

Part of the problem, she said, is the way Congress has set up who investigates when a federal law enforcement officer commits a crime on the job.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a problem of our own making,\u201d Guerrero said.<\/p>\n

The FBI and Department of Justice have the authority to investigate potential crimes committed by federal law enforcement. Because those are sister agencies to the Department of Homeland Security, Guerrero said, there isn\u2019t enough separation for an independent and impartial investigation. Ultimately, both departments answer to the same boss \u2014 the president.<\/p>\n

Within the Department of Homeland Security, the Office of the Inspector General also has power to investigate misconduct, criminal or otherwise, by the department staff. But the department secretary has the power to stop an investigation, which means the investigation isn\u2019t entirely impartial, Guerrero said. At the beginning of President Donald Trump\u2019s second term, he fired\u00a0more than a dozen inspectors general<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0defunded the oversight offices<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Federal law enforcement agencies, including Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, each have an Office of Professional Responsibility, which Guerrero said acts much like an internal affairs office does at a local law enforcement agency by reviewing officer conduct for policy violations and potential administrative consequences. In 2016, Congress gave the Customs and Border Protection Office of Professional Responsibility the power to conduct criminal investigations as well, an authority it still possesses.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re not a good choice because they answer to the same commissioner that agents using force answer to,\u201d Guerrero said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She said federal law enforcement agencies should follow what local police do in California by having an independent law enforcement entity investigate any potential wrongdoing. In California, that means that large local police departments have an agreement that they will investigate for each other. In rural California, that means the state Attorney General\u2019s Office investigates.<\/p>\n

But in Minnesota, federal agencies have blocked local police\u2019s participation in the investigations into the killings of\u00a0Good<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Pretti<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Guerrero said Scott has responsibility in that.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is a part of the system that people have been building for a long time, a system of abuse and impunity,\u201d Guerrero said. \u201cHe drank the Kool-Aid a long time ago. He is in a position to be knowing and doing, and so the buck does stop with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Customs and Border Protection responded to requests for comment from Scott through an unnamed spokesperson.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrying to smear Rodney Scott for sharing the initial facts of what happened that day \u2014 that an agent was struck by a vehicle, carried on the hood, and, fearing for his life, fired to stop the threat \u2014 in a case that\u2019s closed and was reviewed with outside involvement is poor journalism,\u201d the spokesperson\u00a0said, referencing the Tachiqu\u00edn case.<\/p>\n

Trump administration officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, made\u00a0false and misleading claims<\/a>\u00a0about Pretti including\u00a0labelling him a domestic terrorist<\/a>, that were\u00a0not supported<\/a>\u00a0by the facts and later had to be\u00a0walked back<\/a>. When asked about those claims in Congress, Scott declined to speak for Noem and the other high-ranking officials.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Scott repeatedly told the senators that he couldn\u2019t comment on a pending investigation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But Scott also\u00a0told them<\/a>\u00a0that Pretti was \u201cfighting back nonstop\u201d before one of Scott\u2019s employees killed him.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>Nurses and other staff at the VA hospital in La Jolla honor Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse killed by ICE agents in Minneapolis, during a vigil on Jan. 29, 2026. (Photo by Adrian Childress\/Times of San Diego)<\/p>\n

Scott was responding to questions from Sens. Rand Paul and Gary Peters about a moment in video footage of Pretti\u2019s death when he was on the ground with several immigration officials on top of him after one had pepper sprayed his face at close range.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Paul, a Republican who represents Kentucky and leads the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, said he didn\u2019t see anything aggressive in Pretti\u2019s movements.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t see any resistance,\u201d Paul said. \u201cAnybody \u2014 the natural instinct when you have six people on you, you\u2019re going to try to move.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Peters, a Democrat from Michigan, questioned Scott about CBP use-of-force policy relating to one official who appeared to use a pepper spray canister to beat Pretti, Scott declined to answer directly.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re leaving out what I\u2019m seeing is a subject that\u2019s not complying,\u201d Scott said.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s similar to what officials said about Hern\u00e1ndez Rojas \u2014 that he was aggressive and not compliant, even though he was face down on the ground.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Capital & Main<\/a> is an award-winning nonprofit publication that reports from California on the most pressing economic, environmental and social issues of our time, including economic inequality, climate change, health care, threats to democracy, hate and extremism and immigration.\u200b<\/p>\n

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